


Chivas

by cofax



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen, episode-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He didn't want to have this conversation at all. </i>  Filler scene for "Terra Firma".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chivas

The bottle was half-full; John swung it gently as he crossed the room. Chivas: it wasn't JD but after four years without whiskey, he'd settle for what he could get. Meeting after meeting, dodging DK's questions and Aeryn's eyes -- there'd been no time for shopping.

He settled the bottle with a soft clink on the table and filled two glasses, not bothering with ice.

"Dad?" Jack looked up from the table. There weren't any bruises on his face, but he'd been moving more and more stiffly as time passed. By the time Aeryn had left, with a hug from Olivia and a few words for Jack, Jack had subsided onto the couch with a handful of aspirin.

Now Jack had moved to the table, what was left of it after the firefight. They'd moved most of the debris into the yard; the chill of December came in through the shattered sliding glass door. Tomorrow -- tomorrow Jack would have to fix the doors himself.

And tell IASA that all their toys had disappeared in the night.

John handed the glass to Jack and dropped into the other chair across from him. The chair rocked unsteadily but he couldn't be bothered to put anything under the foot to stabilize it. It was probably some kind of metaphor.

"Livvie go to bed?"

"A few minutes ago, while you were loading the ship." Jack took a sip and put the glass down. His hand shook, just a little.

Lo'La had lifted off in silence, the night warping around her as she faded to transparency. John was pretty sure neither Lo'La nor the Prowler would register on the military's radar, which was one reason he'd decided the others should leave first.

There were other reasons. He didn't want to have this conversation with Aeryn in the room. He didn't want to have this conversation at all.

On the other hand, the previous four hours had done much of the work for him.

"So, you're going to tell me things aren't just bald blue priests and living ships out there, aren't you?"

Jack hadn't seen DK's body; John had spared him that. But he couldn't spare him the fact of it. And by tomorrow -- god, Christmas Day -- the world would know that someone had killed two IASA scientists and the aliens were gone. Whatever Jack said, everyone would think D'Argo or John had killed DK. That it could just as easily have been Aeryn wouldn't occur to any of them, of course.

"Yeah." John took a mouthful of the Chivas. It would do; he wasn't going to get any more -- maybe ever-- and he couldn't afford to get drunk. He hoped Aeryn hadn't killed any of the security guards at the hangar when she went to retrieve her Prowler. At least tomorrow was a holiday.

"What was that thing, John? What did it want?" Bottom line up front -- that was his dad. Jack looked nervous: he knew he needed to know but he really really didn't want to. John couldn't blame him.

"I don't know. But -- " DK and Laura had been tortured. John took another mouthful of the whiskey. Another death and another, more bodies for the count. Not for love of him, no. DK had been angry, rightly so. And now he was dead and John couldn't ever explain to him why nothing had mattered as much as that one stupid riddle.

He started again. "I have enemies. People who want to know what I know. They don't much care who gets in the way of what they want." How many now, how many he knew, how many he didn't? Even D'Argo hadn't recognized the species.

Jack frowned. "What do you know that they want so badly?" _What do you know that you're not telling me?_

"Doesn't matter. I don't know enough. Not enough to keep Earth safe, not enough to keep even DK safe." Or his family. John looked down into the glass and remembered Livvie so still on the floor.

"We're okay, son. It's dead." As if Jack had to believe it. But his glass was empty. John didn't pour any more; Chivas probably didn't go well with a knock like Jack had taken.

"How many more doors you want to replace, Dad? You don't understand." He had the itch already, the one that said, 'move or die.' He pushed himself out of his seat and picked a shattered portrait frame off the floor. Melanie pushed Livvie forever in the backyard of the house in Annapolis, the rope swing frozen in midair. He was glad Melanie had had to go back to her family last week; tomorrow was going to be bad enough.

"They don't stop. They won't stop, not until I stop them. And I can't do it from here. You don't want to see what I could do."

"What could you do, John?"

When John didn't answer, Jack spoke again. "What happened to you out there, son? What was it that made you -- like this," and he waved his empty glass towards John, who'd so foolishly left Winona upstairs. Winona wasn't upstairs anymore, and she didn't get in the way as he dropped into the chair again.

Jack had seen him shooting at the alien, had heard a few of the careful stories. But not the real ones, nothing about the Chair or Harvey or the Ancients or the twinning.

The twinning. The girls in the photograph blurred in front of him as he placed it on the table, picking a shard of glass out of the frame and dropping it to the floor. This was why Aeryn couldn't be here for this. Why it was better that Livvie had gone to sleep.

Jack's son was dead, and he didn't even know. John leaned across the table and filled both glasses again.

"I died, Dad. I died a lot."


End file.
